Fact Sheet: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Investments in Comparative Effectiveness Research for Evidence Gap Identification

This fact sheet describes how the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality intends to use American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to initiate an enhanced capacity for identifying and prioritizing evidence needs to help shape future research agendas and set priorities for a national investment in new research based on the findings. Select for a list of funded projects on this topic.

The Need: Enhanced Capacity to Identify and Prioritize Evidence Needs

Section 1013 of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 was designed to increase the availability of research that would inform the real-world decisions facing patients and clinicians. Determining and prioritizing which health issues are most pressing ensures products are designed for maximum usefulness for health care decisionmakers.

The Solution: Evidence Gap Identification

With American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) will initiate an enhanced capacity for identifying and prioritizing evidence needs. The Agency will develop a formal process that will involve stakeholders, including clinicians, funding agencies, and researchers, to consider the gaps identified in systematic reviews. This will help shape future research agendas and set priorities for a national investment in new research based on the findings.

This process will involve bringing together the researchers who worked on the individual review, stakeholders with interest in the topic, clinicians with expertise in the topic area, agencies with funds for potential future research, and researchers with expertise in the clinical area and study design to identify evidence needs and to develop new research based on the findings of the comparative effectiveness review.

Funding will be used to develop this formal approach to ensure it is transparent, systematic, strategic, and rigorous. This activity will build on and expand current AHRQ Effective Health Care Program efforts to involve stakeholders in research. Inputs to the process will include stakeholder nominations and recommendations from sources such as the Federal Coordination Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research or the Institute of Medicine's project on Priority Setting for Comparative Effectiveness Research, as well as AHRQ's systematic review process.

Funding Method: 8 task orders, competed among existing U.S. EPCs.
Project Duration: 3 years
Funding Amount: $25 million

Information on contract solicitations can be found at http://www.fbo.gov.